MORGANTOWN — Hope Gas has received approval to acquire nearly 900 miles of gathering pipelines in northern West Virginia from Equitrans Midstream Corp.

The transaction was reviewed and approved by the West Virginia Public Service Commission on May 26. Closing is anticipated in 30 days.

“Safe, reliable, and affordable energy is key to everyday life and to economic development,” Morgan O’Brien, CEO of Hope Gas, said. “Hope Gas is committed to investing in West Virginia infrastructure that will support the energy needs of the state, today and into the future.”

With this purchase, Hope will acquire gathering assets that are an important piece of West Virginia’s energy infrastructure, O’Brien said.

About 4,900 farm tap customers are served from this pipeline and there are about 1,000 interconnections that allow natural gas producers to transport gas supplies from their wells. The pipeline plays an important role in future strategies to bring additional supplies into Hope’s system, the utility said.

“Because of the continuing decline of gas production on this system, customers have experienced service issues associated with this pipeline, particularly on cold winter days,” O’Brien said. “Now that Hope owns the pipeline, we will be working hard with our partners at Equitrans and with local producers to solve the problems that have impacted these customers. It will not be fixed overnight, but the Hope Gas operations team will make this right for our customers as they always do.”

Hope Gas was purchased from Dominion in September. Founded in 1898, its new corporate headquarters are in Morgantown where Hope Gas is among the largest local natural gas companies in West Virginia.

The company in January purchased Peoples Gas and recently entered into an agreement to purchase Southern Public Service Company.

Hope Gas is a subsidiary of Hearthstone Holdings, a holding company that owns regulated natural gas and water distribution utilities in West Virginia, Arizona, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas.

Hope Gas provides gas service to more than 112,000 residential, industrial and commercial customers in 35 counties in West Virginia.